City council member in Austin: Precourt Sports Ventures' stadium plan 'looks like a massive giveaway'

Andrew Erickson The Columbus Dispatch @AEricksonCD

Thursday

Jun 7, 2018 at 3:53 PMJun 7, 2018 at 8:47 PM

Leslie Pool, a city council member in Austin, Texas, whose district includes the city-owned site eyed by Crew SC operator Precourt Sports Ventures as a possible stadium location, on Thursday detailed her concerns with the group’s 189-page stadium proposal as well as its general approach to a potential move from Columbus.

After a detailed review with her staff, she said, the plan “doesn’t pencil out.”

“It looks like a massive giveaway,” Pool said. “Precourt Sports Ventures, they don’t want to pay property taxes but they want the city to cover most of the cost for them without any revenue to pay for it, which we could get from the property taxes.”

PSV said in the proposal it will privately finance a $200 million stadium on the 24-acre site in north Austin. The plan includes $93 million in direct benefits to “affordable housing, non-profit support and youth programs” over the next 25 years. PSV’s plan suggested a 20-year lease term at $1 per year. Under PSV’s terms, the city of Austin would own the land, infrastructure and stadium, but the team and PSV would collect event and other revenues.

PSV announced in October it would explore the possibility of relocating the Crew to Austin after the 2018 season, citing concerns about attendance, corporate sponsorships and an aging Mapfre Stadium. PSV officials have said they would like to have an initial stadium agreement or letter of intent complete by the end of June.

PSV president Dave Greeley reiterated that point Thursday in an interview with the Austin American-Statesman, particularly in response to Pool saying she is working on a resolution for a June 28 city council meeting that would call for other proposals for the stadium site.

“We appreciate and respect all of the process,” Greeley said. “If the city seriously wants to consider (a request for proposal) process, they should. We would just tell them that we want MLS to Austin in March of 2019, and the reality is that there is time sensitivity attached to this.

“We want some sort of understanding, some sort of mutual commitment, by the July council break. I don’t know what form that’s going to take. Could it be a definitive agreement? That might be a long shot, but maybe it’s a memorandum of understanding. Maybe it’s a resolution.”

Pool has said multiple times throughout PSV’s seven-month pursuit of a stadium solution in Austin that she does not want to be rushed into a deal. She said she has heard similar concerns from her constituents.

>>Join our Columbus Crew SC Fans Facebook group for the latest news, updates and to join in on the conversation.

“They’ve pointed to boondoggles, that you’re being hoodwinked when people create a false sense of urgency, that you have to do it now because if you don’t do it now then this deal is going to go away,” Pool said. “That’s a time-honored approach for a used-car salesman. ‘This car isn’t going to be here at this price tomorrow.’ I’m constitutionally reluctant to be pushed like that. That’s not fair and it’s not a public process in my mind.

“That’s not how a governmental entity should be making policy or decisions for the taxpayers.”

Pool argued that PSV, based on its proposal, is attempting to privatize public land.

“They want all the benefit from it — the gate fees, the merchandise, concessions, advertising, you name it — and they don’t want to pay property taxes and (want to) keep all the revenue,” she said. “They want to privatize this public land and then require the city of Austin taxpayers to shoulder that tax burden and pay for those benefits for them. They haven’t given me any reason except that it’s soccer, which I don’t think really rises to the (acceptable) level. That’s a concern.”

Ohio and Columbus’ lawsuit against Precourt Sports Ventures and Major League Soccer is also a concern for Pool.

In early May, after Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey M. Brown ordered a 90-day pause in the lawsuit, PSV lobbyist Richard Suttle said at a community engagement meeting, “It hasn't hit the pause button on bringing MLS to Austin.”

It was at that point, Pool said, that she approached the city’s legal staff.

“It’s a concern to me, so much so that I had our legal staff provide a legal brief, which is obviously confidential, to let us know what impacts the (Attorney General Mike) DeWine lawsuit might have on what we’re doing down here,” she said. “(Suttle’s comments) raised the flag for me to then go to our legal staff and ask them to give us their considered legal opinion on whether and what impacts the Ohio (lawsuit) will have here in Texas.”

Pool said she has heard from Crew fans and others in Columbus and said their comments have shaped her perception of PSV and MLS.

“I am learning some things about the reputation of the owners and frankly about the leadership, if I can be blunt, of MLS as an institution that gives rise to serious concerns on my part that they would be a group that we would want to enter into this kind of big-stakes financial deals,” she said. “I don’t know if I would want to partner with folks who have that kind of a reputation of pulling up stakes and moving a team. It’s not in the dead of night like some of the football teams that have been moved, but it has had similar repercussions and it’s clearly unfair to the people who have given their heart and soul over to the brand and the team.

“I get it, it’s a business decision, but that doesn’t mean that I’m OK with it or that anybody should be OK with it because really the only ones benefiting from that business decision are the owners, so I have some serious questions about their intentions.”

Pool said she and her staff came away from the PSV proposal with concerns about parking. PSV included a study in the plan that indicated there are more than 10,000 parking spots within a 20-minute walk., including 9,000 spots at The Domain, a large-scale retail and office center in north Austin, and just under 600 spots at the JJ Pickle Research Campus less than two miles from McKalla Place.

A spokesperson for the University of Texas said Wednesday that the university has not been approached about public parking for MLS games at the Pickle Research Campus. A spokesperson for the Domain’s parent company, Simon Property Group, could not be reached Wednesday.

Pool’s greatest concern over parking relates to a potential 1,000 parking spots east of McKalla Place that do not currently come with adequate pedestrian access to the proposed stadium site.

“There is no pedestrian crossing on those train tracks,” she said. “They’re really not thinking about the safety of the fans who would come to their games, in my opinion.”

Pool said her resolution would be a way for other proposals for the site to “get some oxygen in front of city council.” On Tuesday, two groups , including Capella Capital Partners, which has plans to develop a $250 million office and apartment project on the land adjacent to McKalla Place, presented development plans to members of the Gracywoods Neighborhood Association in north Austin. Pool was in attendance.

“I think it’s important for everybody to know what other alternatives are out there,” she said. “I don’t like the binary choice of, ‘Stadium yes, stadium no.’ It needs to be, ‘Stadium can be an only option, but it can’t be the only option.’ We don’t know what the other options are at this point.”

aerickson@dispatch.com

@AEricksonCD

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.